This crocodile daddy giving 100 babies a ride puts your carpool to shameIn Indian mythology, the goddess Ganga—the personification of the Ganges river—is often depicted riding a creature with the head of a gharial crocodile, a fish-eating beast that only exists in the Indian peninsula. Once distributed throughout nearly 31,000 square miles in four countries, the gharial is now a critically endangered species; photographer Dhritiman Mukherjee recently set out to capture some of the few remaining (and, one might say, sacred) gharials.
2Local asteroid Bennu used to be filled with tiny riversNASA sent a spacecraft—the Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security, Regolith Explorer (or OSIRIS-REx for short)—to the asteroid Bennu. This space rock has gone relatively untouched since the formation of the solar system, so studying it could provide a window to those early days and help us better understand the origins of life as we know it.
1The Nobel Prize in physics honors insights on black holes—including the one in our own galaxyThe Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced on Tuesday that the 2020 Nobel Prize in physics will be shared by three astrophysicists: Andrea Ghez at UCLA, Reinhard Genzel of the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics in Germany, and Oxford University’s Roger Penrose. The award acknowledges their pioneering work in our understanding of black holes, particularly the one sitting at the center of our own galaxy. These supermassive objects devour everything that comes too close, including light.
1A deep-space telescope spied an exoplanet so hot it can vaporize ironSome 322 light-years away in the constellation Libra lies one of the most extreme and hottest worlds discovered by astronomers so far. Launched into Earth orbit last December, the European Space Agency's shiny new exoplanet-hunting satellite CHaracterising ExOPlanet Satellite (or CHEOPS) spotted exoplanet WASP-189b, a gas giant circling close to one of the hottest known stars with a planetary system.
1How does contact tracing work, and how extensive will it be for Trump?Epidemiologists say that officials like Donald Trump, as well as First Lady Melania Trump and former Press Secretary Hope Hicks, both of whom also tested positive, are uniquely positioned to influence the pandemic because of how many people they come into contact with without taking many precautions.
2Three ways scientists could search for life on VenusVenus is hot right now, and not just because its hellacious surface temperatures can melt lead. After a recent surprise discovery of a molecule associated with life in the planet’s atmosphere, Venusian clouds have joined the subsurface of Mars, the water oceans of Europa and Enceladus, and the methane lakes of Titan on the short list of nearby places astrobiologists would like to search for extraterrestrial life.
1Five key science takeaways from the first presidential debateLast night, President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden went to head to head in an extraordinary first debate. Everyone in attendance (family, media, and campaign staff only) was masked up and tested for COVID-19 prior to arrival. The candidates didn’t shake hands when they took the stage, again to limit transmission of the virus.
2Is Gatorade actually better than water?Decades’ worth of Gatorade commercials have taught us two things: sports drinks hydrate you better than water, and it’s normal to sweat orange or blue liquid. Neither of these things is true, but it does bring us to another interesting point, which is that few of us really understand why we might be consuming sports drinks in the first place.
1NASA is preparing to send its $23 million toilet to spaceNASA spent $23 million designing a new and improved space toilet for the astronauts on the International Space Station, and it’s set to launch this week. The new design for the toilet is designed to be more space-efficient and to better suit the needs of the women onboard the ISS.
1Why do brains need sleep? These ‘twinkling’ star-shaped cells may help us find outScientists still haven’t nailed down the exact reason why we need to sleep—they only really know what happens to our brains when we don’t. But a new study published last week in Current Biology investigates a unique kind of star-shaped cell that has long been overlooked that may reveal some answers: astrocytes.
3One third of US parents say they won’t get their kids the flu vaccineThe last few weeks have been full of rapidly changing and often confusing guidance from the CDC, but in a Senate hearing last week, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Anthony Fauci, and other experts tried to clear the air. Fauci cited a recent study that found only about 10 percent of Americans currently have antibodies for COVID-19. That makes it doubly important to get your flu shot this year, and to continue practicing social distancing and mask-wearing. Here’s everything else you should know for the upcoming week.
2Crisp Hubble snapshot shows powerful new Jupiter stormsJupiter’s stormy weather has always astonished astronomers: astronomers have captured evidence of ammonia-laden hail during thunderstorms, and its gassy landscape is the perfect environment to brew violent, giant storms that can last for centuries. Now, an image taken by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope shows how these massive hurricanes form.
2Bright rocks on Ryugu reveal the asteroid’s violent pastAsteroid Ryugu was somewhat of a mystery when astronomers first spotted it back in 1999. But we now know that the spinning-top-shaped body floating some 217 million miles from Earth is a loose assemblage of fragments from a collision between two asteroids held together by their aggregate gravity. Scientists estimate Ryugu formed between 10 million to 20 million years ago—practically yesterday in cosmic time, but how the asteroid came to be has remained largely unknown. Now, new research lays bare Ryugu’s recent violent past.
1A climate anomaly may have worsened the 1918 pandemic and WWIFor much of World War I, the weather across Europe was unrelentingly foul. Torrential, incessant rain turned battlefields into muck and flooded trenches and tunnels, while bitterly cold nights brought frostbite. The reason for these conditions may be a rare climate anomaly that persisted for six years, new research indicates.
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